The Aramaic of Daniel & Integrity of the Biblical Prophecy Joseph Rhodes

Abstract. Kitchen, Yamauchi, Kutscher, et al. have shown beyond much reasonable

doubt the Greek words in Daniel are irrelevant for dating, the Persian words in Daniel are mostly old Persian loan-words (some with Akkadian backgrounds), and mostly it has been demonstrated that the Aramaic fits with the Imperial Aramaic of the early Persian Age of Cyrus and Darius. Kitchen himself points out that the date of the book of Daniel cannot be finally decided on linguisitic grounds alone. But if we have no reason to doubt that Daniel‘s Aramaic and Hebrew go back to the sixth century, then his incredible forecasts of world-history in Greek Roman times of the 3rd to 1st century (in chaps. 9-11) and his profound depiction of the ―days of the end‖ indicate the supernatural integrity of his visions.

I. Introduction

Certain isagogic issues related to the book of Daniel are important to faith and

conservative scholars have carefully examined the key facts about the authorship and

date, the prophet‘s historical setting, language, prophetic character, theology, and

relation to the New Testament. Although this paper will be directed toward a brief

analysis of the first three areas, the other issues are equally important. The purpose of

this study is to connect what the writer has learned about historical and linguistic

research from those who are actually experts on the subject. And without hesitation,

from the outset, he will acknowledge that his real applied knowledge of Biblical

Aramaic is elementary in depth and limited in scope.1 But attempting this project in

itself has been educational and immensely valuable in helping to collect certain key

facts and highlighting important words which tend to indicate that Daniel‘s prophecy is

authentic and supernaturally inspired.

In the opening verses of Daniel (1:1-8), we meet young Daniel who describes

himself as one a group of young men from Judah (1:6), as those brought as captives by

King Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C. to Babylon. Because Daniel, if he is the author, also

described the capture of Babylon by the Medes and Persians in 539 B.C., he must have

resided there until ca. 535 B.C.2 According to Jewish tradition, there have been two

possible locations for Daniel‘s tomb, one, a royal vault in Babylon a little west of the

acropolis and the other, in one of the Synagogues of Susa.3

2

According to his Hebrew name, la@yn!D *, Daniel means ― God is my judge.‖ The

shortened form appears in Ezekiel as la@n!D*. There are five direct mentions of

Daniel in remainder of Scripture and one allusion in Hebrews 11:33-34.4 Stephen Miller, a Baptist scholar, following the lead of earlier writers, has noted that this name also appears in other Semitic languages, including Akkadian and Ugaritic.5

II. Authorship and Date

The historical and theological debate over the integrity of Daniel and the status

of its authorship and date has been rather polarized for a little over a century. And

the debate is inevitable since one‘s presuppositions and answers to certain questions

determine whether or not one views Daniel as a true prophet with a Divine message.

Although in contemporary times there are few new wrinkles, scholarly views break

along the traditional (orthodox) supernatural axis, which sees the prophecy as

historically reliable and supernaturally accurate in its predictions and along the

modernistic (liberal) and anti-supernaturalistic ordinate that Daniel was essentially the

work of an anonymous Jew ( or a group of Jews) writing under a pseudonym during the

second century B.C. While the conservative or orthodox believers in the book realize it

succumbed to some transmissional (scribal) errors and some modernization in language

as it was copied from the 6th to the 2nd centuries, they believe it was the work of the

author who described himself in in 10:1 as living until at least 536 B.C. The liberal or

critical thesis, however, is that the book was a propaganda piece to bolster wavering

Jews during their struggle with forced Hellenization under the tyrant Antiochus IV

Epiphanes (175-163 B.C.) in the times of the Maccabees. Thus, this position is called

the Maccabean thesis.6 John C.Trevor, a respected archaeologist and moderate liberal,

actually has entertained the hypothesis that the mysterious founder of the Qumran

Community, the elusive ― Teacher of Righteousness‖ was the author-compiler of the

book.7 Such views do not allow for much reliability of Biblical history or predictive

prophecy, naturally.

The first and main attack on the traditional ascription of Daniel‘s authorship

came after the event of Christianity - in the third century. It came from Porphyry (ca.

232-303 A.D.), a Neo-Platonic critic of Christianity who foisted the second century

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date on the book so that he could render the majority of its prophecies as vacticinia

ex eventu.8 Porphyry‘s actual manuscript is not extant, but the gist of its argument is

preserved in Jerome‘s famous Commentary on Daniel. And, Jerome, who was no

slouch, quickly perceived the a priori assumptions of skeptical Prophyry and he stated

the orthodox objection forcefully: ―[Porphyry] claims that the person who composed

the book under the name of Daniel made it all up in order to revive the hopes of his

countrymen. Not that he was able to fore-know all of future history, but rather he

records events that had already taken place.‖ 9 Stephen Miller summarizes the two

schools of thought as follows:

Regarding the work‘s composition and unity, scholars who subscribe to the tradi- tional view agree that the book was recorded by Daniel (or a contemporary), but there is no unaminity among those who espouse the Maccabean thesis. The major- ity of those scholars consider chaps. 7-12 to be essentially an original creation of the Maccabean author who introduced his material with the tales of chaps. 1-6, a collection borrowed from a Danielic corpus dating to the previous century.

Another closely related issue in respect to authorship and date has to do with

the placing of Daniel within the Kethuvim portion of the Jewish canon rather than

among the Nebiim, and the citation of Ben Sira‘s testimony in Ecclesiasticus (ca. 180

B.C., Sirach 44-50) about it. However, even here the evidence is equivocal, especially

in light of recent finds in the Cairo Geniza (Hebrew manuscript B) and fragments found

at Masada and Qumran. Miller actually shows that if Ben Sira alluded to the Book of

Daniel, the referenced portions could have been written prior to 180 B.C. 11

Finally, before entering fully into the question of the language components of

Daniel, and Daniel‘s Aramaic portion in particular, it is desirable to make a few

important philosophical caveats :

(1) It is silly to say that since Daniel‘s message is spiritual or religious, it is simply like the

parables of Jesus‘ and history is inconsequential. Jesus never suggested that his Parables

were historical narratives, but the prophetic oracles Daniel records are necessarily related

to true history, though they may move beyond Daniel‘s own historical horizon.

(2) R.H. Pfieffer himself was forced to acknowledge that Daniel reports a few incredibly

accurate historical tidbits, that new Babylon was the brain child of Nebuchadnezzar (4:30;

Hebr. 4:27), that Belshazzar, Nabonidus‘ son, mentioned only in Babylonian annals and

Daniel (ch.5) was functioning king when Cyrus took Babylon in 538 B.C. 12

4

(3) Conservative evangelical scholar, R.K Harrison (formerly of Wycliffe College connect-

ed to the University of Toronto) has noted two other important places where the author

of Daniel ― was quite accurate in recording the change from punishment by fire under

the Babylonians (Dan. 3:11) to punishment by being thrown to the lions under the Pers-

ian regime (Dan. 6:7), since fire was sacred to the Zoroastrians of Persia.‖ 13

(4) Other critical attacks and the arguments that these are based upon (that the book was

really written to address the oppression of Antiochus IV and to support the Maccabean

revolt) just do not hold water.14 For example, A.F. Ferch has made two incisive observa-

tions about the Maccabean thesis: If the author was a Hasidim or was a pacifist, it is un-

likely that he would not mention the brilliant successes of his Jewish countrymen and

fail to name such heroes as Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus.15 Also, in respect to Dani-

el 11, Ferch argues that one would expect more precise allusions to the Maccabean crisis

since this material was purportedly written within a matter of months after the events

transpired.16

One final rebuttal of the Maccabean authorship of Daniel is that the actual pagan

governments mentioned in the book (i.e., the Neo-Babylonian and Medo-Persian

authorities) do not exhibit, in the main, a hostile attitude toward the Jews, contrary to

the conditions in the early second century under Antiochus IV. 17 While the Hebrew and

Aramaic document we have certainly indicates that Daniel was not an antagonist of

Nebuchadnezzer (and actually admired him), the godly Jews who lived in the era of

Antiochus despised and were repulsed by the Seleucid pagan despot who persecuted and

murdered them. As Miller perceptively concludes, ― Even if the stories were written

earlier than the second century B.C., and adapted by a Maccabean author, it seems logical

to expect that he would have changed elements of the stories to fit his present

situation.‖18

III. The Aramaic of Daniel & Linguistic Elements of the Prophecy. A. Status of the Persian Loan-Words In Daniel.

Now it is time to turn to the question of the original languages of Daniel and the

significance of the Aramaic and the many ancient words that Daniel uses along with it.

Before delving into the full question, however, it may be helpful to look at one term in

5

particular mentioned in the book, the word ― Chaldean.‖ According to Joyce Baldwin, this

term is employed in two senses:

. . . i. to designate the peoples of southern Babylonia, Semitic in origin, who settled around the Persian Gulf in the twelfth to the eleventh centuries BC, and were called by the Babylonians ‗Chaldeans‘ ( Daniel 5:30;9:1); ii. with reference to the astrology for which these people were famous ( 2:2,2,4,5, etc.), but this is not the Babylonian use of the term. Since Nebuchadnezzar was a Chaldean by race the ethnic use of the term in the book of Daniel is not surprising; its use by Herodotus as a technical term for the priests of Bel in the fifth century BC shows it had already by then a second-

ary sense. 19

The Assyrian records of the eight and seventh centuries used the term in the

ethnic sense, but as Baldwin points out, there is a complete absence of this word in

Babylonian texts in the sixth century in either of these senses (in respect to extant

records). 20 But she asserts that argumentum ex silentio is precarious and thus it is

unwarranted to suggest the word is anachronistic in Daniel‘s writing. The British

archaeologist A.R. Millard has, in fact, written an excellent article on this topic and

his conclusion (cited by Baldwin) is that the distinction between the Hebrew form of

the word kasd m and the Greek, which translates the Babylonian kalda)yu, becoming

the English ‗Chaldean‘, can now be accounted for on philological grounds. 21 Thus, the

Hebrew form (found in Daniel 1-6) probably preserves the earlier (more ancient form)

of the word, and is not therefore less accurate than the Greek term, as some modern

commentators have guessed. 22

The book of Daniel is written partially in Hebrew (1:1-2:4a and 8:1-12:13) and

partially in Aramaic (2:4b-7:28), which is, as we have learned, a cognate language to

Hebrew, using the same script derived from the ancient Canaanites or Phonecians.

Some scholars, taking clues from Genesis 31:47 and the established use of Aramaic as

an international language in the 8th century B.C. (as indicated by 2 Kings 18:36),

postulate that the two languages existed throughout the first millennium B.C. side by

side. Others believe that both languages may go back to the second millennium or

even before, as spoken languages have frequently existed for centuries without

written scripts or conscious grammatical rules. 23 William F. Albright, the formerly

celebrated dean of American Biblical archaeologists, has said this: ― In the past few

decades it has become certain that there is a similar genetic relationship between the

Semitic tongues of Asia (Canannite-Hebrew, Aramaic, Accadian, Arabic) and the

6

Hamitic of North Africa, with Egyptian taking the intermediate position between

them.‖ He continues, ― Here, however, the time which elapsed between the original

diffusion of Hamito-Semitic peoples and the earliest available documents in the

individual languages is much greater than in the case of Indo-European, so the

difficulty of formulating laws governing phonetic change and well as of reconstructing

grammatical evolution is correspondingly greater.‖ 24

Various explanations have been given for the use of so much Aramaic in Daniel

and some liberal scholars have actually suggested that the Aramaic part may have

been published separately for interested non-Jews. H.H. Rowley, for example, held

this kind of separate circulation occurred and fit it into his Maccabean theory. 25

Another provocative theory is that the author deliberately engaged the two languages

for structuring the book, with the international language, i.e., Aramaic, in chapters 2-

7 containing Yahweh‘s message for the nations. 26

At just this point, however, critical and liberal scholars have based their case

for the late date of Daniel on the supposed data of late Aramaic. Many Bible students

(excepting a few Princetonian Presbyterians and some diehard Lutherans) have in the

past been intimidated by arguments in this area because of the specialized historical

and philological knowledge required to assess the claims. But over the last few

decades evangelical scholars have come to realize that the liberal case for their

position is highly shaky, given the principle that it is precarious to attempt to establish

dates of ancient documents based on scarce linguistic evidence. And for a long-time

the amount of classical or Imperial Aramaic was not available and was not of a

comprehensive nature. This lack of evidence allowed liberal scholars such as S.R.

Driver and H.H. Rowley to dogmatically assert that Daniel must be late (late 3rd or

early 2nd century B.C.) and could not have possibly been written in the mid-sixth

century B.C. in Babylon by the traditional prophet. Almost everyone knows S.R.

Driver‘s infamous oft-quoted dictum: ― The Persian words presuppose a period after

the Persian empire had been well established: the Greek demand, the Hebrew

supports, and the Aramaic permits, a date after the conquest of Palestine by

Alexander the Great (B.C. 332).‖ 27 Many contemporary commentators of the liberal

stripe blandly accept this word of the past experts on this matter, along with the

other ― assured results of scholarship.‖

7

Following the time of S.R. Driver, H.H. Rowley did a fairly thorough study of

the subject earlier in the century, generally with standard critical results (Cf. his

classic work, The Aramaic of the Old Testament. London: Oxford University Press,

1929). 28 Life and scholarship do not stand still, though, and new scholarship began to

favor the conservative and orthodox view that Daniel‘s Aramaic, and Biblical Aramaic,

was, in fact, earlier and more the like 6th and 7th century language than previously

thought.29

The most sophisticated analysis of the Aramaic of Daniel made from both an

archaeological and linguistic point of view was that done by University of Liverpool

Egyptologist, K.A. Kitchen, who was also a professor of Oriential Studies. His lengthy

and meticiously researched ― The Aramaic of Daniel ‖ appeared in 1965. He examined

Daniel‘s Aramaic in respect to vocabulary, orthography and phonetics, and general

morphology and syntax. His investigation radically challenged the status quo of liberal

views on Daniel‘s language.30 Here we actually begin with Kitchen‘s general

conclusions:

The Aramaic of Daniel (and of Ezra) is simply a part of Imperial Aramaic – in it- self, practically undatable with any conviction within c.600 - 330 B.C. – a part which differs from nearly all the rest solely in being scribally transmitted litera- ture and hence subject to orthographic and allied changes. The old battles over ‗Eastern‘ or ‗Western‘ Aramaic were a waste of effort, for Imperial Aramaic

antedates both, and offers no good evidence for such a distinction. 31

Kitchen makes several more important points. For one thing, in Biblical

Aramaic, word-order in sentences having finite verbs is quite different from normal

Northwest Semitic usage (verb – subject – etc.). ― Instead we find the subject

commonly first with the verb at the end of the sentence having the object more often

before than after it (i.e., the subject – object – verb; or, subject – verb – object). This

stands in striking contrast to the Dead Sea Scrolls Genesis Apocryphon of about the

first century BC and the Targum of Job of the late (?) second century BC, both of them

embarrasily close in time to a supposedly second-century Daniel.‖ 32 However, open-

minded examination of Biblical Aramaic reveals that its format agrees almost perfectly

with the word-order of the Assur ostracon of the seventh century BC and with the

freedom or order in the fifth-century (Elephantine) Aramaic papyri from Egypt. 33

Again, Professor Kitchen makes it completely plausible that Aramaic follows

the earlier model of Mesopotamian Akkadian which puts the verb (normally) at or near

8

the end of the sentence. Thus, this shows, he believes, that Biblical Aramaic (= BA,

hereafter) belongs to the early tradition of Imperial Aramaic (7th to the 4th centuries

BC) and is quite distinct from the later local Palestinian derivatives of Imperial

Aramaic such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. 34 Furthermore, Kitchen explains the actual

historical development:

During the whole period c. 1200-630 BC, with Aramaean pentration into Meso- potamia, the Assyrian conquest of the Aramaean states, and deportation of Ara- maeans into Mesopotamia, there was plenty of time for this Mesopotamian impo- sition on Aramaic syntax to take place in Mesopotamia. When the Mesopotamian naturalized Aramaic became a chancelley - language for Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and above all Persian government officials, it carried this mark everywhere. But the spoken language in Palestine, among the Hebrews and perhaps other West- -Semitic language stock, Aramaic reverted to the old syntactic pattern, visible in the Old Aramaic inscriptions of N. Syria itself, outside of Mesopotamia and not populated by Akkadian-speakers. In view of this and other considerations, sever- al scholars today would consider an Eastern ( Mesopotamian) origin for the Ara- maic part of Daniel (and Ezra)as probable, in agreement with the subject matter,

though absolute proof cannot be given with the relative unity of Imperial Aramaic. 35

But it is important to give attention to the details, and first in line is the status

of the Persian loan words in Daniel‘s Aramaic (hereafter = DA). This was part of

Driver‘s case in 1897 and it was reiterated by J.A. Montgomery and others in the early

twentieth century. H.H. Rowley actually listed some words he believed were of

Persian derivation and methodologically proceeded by checking to see how many of

these were used by the Jewish Targums (ca. 1st century B.C. and later). From the

original twenty, his analysis found twelve words that persisted. And his basis for

comparison was twenty-six Persian words in A.E. Cowley‘s collection of fifth-century

Aramaic papyri, only two words from which occur in the Targums and two others in

Daniel. Thus, his conclusion was that these surviving Aramaic words in Daniel must

point to a later date – one near the Targums and not to an earlier date – one near the

fifth century papyri. 36 This example of ― assured results of scholarship‖ remained until

1965 when K.A. Kitchen undermined its seamless certainty. For Kitchen sagaciously

judged this case made on a score or less words ― is altogether too fragile a basis for

statistical argument,‖ and that a comparison must also be made with the vocbulary of

Imperial Aramaic ( hereafter = Official Aramaic, ca. 700-300 B.C. ) including all those

Aramaic documents which have been published since 1923. Kitchen also reasoned that

the type of words needs to evaluated since there are six terms which have not been

9

found occur after 330 B.C., and certain terms were not understood by those who

translated the Old Testament into Greek. 37 The following chart summarizes Kitchen‘s

own analysis of the 19-20 Persian loan words in Daniel‘s Aramaic:

(a) Rowley‘s list should omit two words zwn [ = ―time‘] and srbl [= ―trousers‖] for, as Kitchen demonstrates, the first is clearly derived from the Akkadian sima- nu and then the second one, more obscure, is found in the fifth-century papyri.

He adds to this ptys ( = ― garment‖) to this list.

(b) Thus 13 out of the original 20 terms are attested in the later Aramaic litera- ture and 6 do not appear.

(c) While not questioning the statistical facts remaining, Kitchen nevertheless strongly criticizes Rowley‘s conclusions are a number of grounds (see above).

(d) While Rowley compared the Persian vocabulary of BA with that of the Tar- gums, he failed to compare that same vocabulary with the OA, e.g., the Im- perial Aramaic documents of the sixth – fifth centuries B.C. This is precisely what Kitchen does on page 37. His conclusion: ― Of the 19 words here accept- ed as Persian in the Aramaic of Daniel, 8 or 9 occur in Imperial Aramaic or in contemporary sources.‖

(e) As for the Aramaic of Daniel having only 2 Persian words in common with the Aramaic of the fifth-century papyri in Egypt, Kitchen cites the new material from Emil Kraeling in 1953 and the new collections of G.R. Driver in 1954-57 as well as the papyri from Tuna el-Gebel (Hermopolis West) (See pp. 38-39). An interesting fact here is that the Driver documents contain 26 Persian words, 19 of which are entirely new to Imperial Aramaic, and sharing only 2 words with the Cowley and Kraeling papyri. Kitchen: ― In other words, the Driver documents show as many finities in their Persian vocabulary with the Talmud ( 3 words; plus gnz and ptgm attested early and late ) as with other records of the fifth century BC (five items in Cowley and Kraeling ) – but no one would use such statistics to prove that the Driver documents should be placed half-way chronlogically between the fifth and second centuries BC (c 250?) on such a basis !

(f) ―Likewise, Daniel with 8 or 9 Persian words in the sixth-fifth century sources ( 5 or 6 actually in the papyri ) out 21 words ( and 7 words unattested until the Targums ) compares perfectly well with 5 and 7 words in the sixth-fifth out of 26 compares perfectly well with 5 or 7 words in the sixth-fifth centuries out of 26 ( 3, only in Talmud ) of the Driver documents – these latter have less in the late

sources only, but less in the early documents also !‖ 38

What does this all mean ? As Kitchen observes: ― [it] simply throws into relief

the following facts. (i) With only a score or so of Persian words in each writing or

group of documents, statistics are virtually worthless. (ii) The supposedly few Persian

words common to the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra and that of the eighty-seven papyri

in Cowley prove only that our knowledge of the total impact of Old Persian upon

Imperial Aramaic (and its continuations) is grossly inadequate, when one small group

of closely similar documents yields 50 per cent new Persian loan-words, and another

10

and separate group (from the East) 19 out of 26 words new (c. 80 per cent)‖ 39 He also

says: ― (iii) It should be noted that in fact several more words in the Aramaic of both

Daniel and Ezra are common to them and the Aramaic papyri (besides other

documents) than was allowed by Rowley in 1929.‖ ―(iv) When words are attested

outside of Daniel (or Ezra) both in the sixth-fifth century texts and in the late

(Targumic/Talmudic) sources, this proves only that these words had a long life in

Aramaic, and in themselves leave open the whole period of the sixth-second centuries

BC for Daniel . . . . each represents merely negative evidence for the periods

unattested, and hence is useless for specific dating purposes; they cancel each other

out.‖ 40

After looking at many specific common Persian loan-words, Kitchen calls

attention to two quite unique Aramaic words in the book of Daniel: ‟drgzr and hdbr,

both high titles ( ―counselor‖ and ―companion‖ ) and to four words which occur only

so far in the Aramaic of Daniel and early sixth-fifth century documents: ’h !sdrpn

(―satrap‖); dtbr (―judge‖); and t(y)pt (―magistrate‖) ; ‟ zd‟ (―certified,‖ etc.). Here

also are titles, and 1 part of official OA style. And thereafter he states: ― There is as

yet no evidence that any of these 6 terms survived the Persian period (after 330 BC).

This in itself is negative evidence, and therefore is inadequate. But there is limited

positive evidence in its support, from the LXX (Old Greek and Theodotion).‖ 41 What

this proves he next sets forth:

Among the official titles in the Aramaic of Daniel (Dn. 3:2-3, etc.), Persian

’h!sdrpn and Semitic sgn and ph!h, and the general phrase ‗ all the rulers of the

provinces‘ are reasonably well rendered. But for ‘drgzr ‗counselor‘; gdbr, ‗trea- surer‘; dtbr,‗law-officer‘; t(y)pt, ‗magistrate, police chief ‘,the Old Greek (and later) renderings are hopelessly inexact – mere guesswork. If the first important Greek translation of Daniel was made some time within c. 100 BC–AD 100, rough- ly speaking, and the translator could not (or took no trouble to) reproduce the proper meanings of these terms, then one conclusion imposes itself: their mean- ing was already lost and forgotten (or, at least, drastically changed) long before

he set to work. . . . 42

Now, the recipients of this study may be sick of Persian loan-words, but

Professor Kitchen has to deliver the coup-de-grace on the matter as he comments

wryly, ― One further point should be made here: the Persian words in Daniel are

specifically Old Persian words . . . . Now, the fact that the Iranian element in Daniel is

from Old Persian and not Middle indicates that the Aramaic of Daniel is in this respect

pre-Hellenistic, drew on no Persian from after the fall of that empire – and not on any

11

Persian words and forms that might have penetrated Aramaic in Arsacid times (c. 250

BC, ff.).‖ 43

B. The Matter of Greek Loan-Words in Daniel

Joyce Baldwin has commented : ― Much has been made of the occurrence of

Greek words, and to the non-specialist the inference might seem conclusive that they

point to a period after the conquests of Alexander the Great until it is made clear

that there are only three such words, and that they are all the names of musical

instruments.‖44 Generally, critical scholars think that Greek words did not come into

use in the Oriental languages until the later fourth century. The controversial Greek

loan words appear in Daniel 3:5,7,10,15 and these are set forth as proof of a late 3rd

century or even 2nd century composition of the book. Stephen Miller cites R. Jeffery

who insists that the three Greek words, sort+q ̂ [Greek, s], ― zither, ‖

:yr!T@n+s^P + [Greek, ], ― psalterion,‖ and hy*n+P)m+Ws [Greek, ]

― pipes ‖ ― have a history within Greek that shows that they could hardly have come

into Oriental languages until that spread of Greek culture which followed the

campaigns of Alexander the Great.‖45 But Kitchen had already forcefully responded to

this in his notable essay: ― However, these easy assumptions of Greek influence in the

East only after c. 332 are in large measure misleading and erroneous . . .‖46 Here his

exposition has several extended illustrations but here will only the highlights will be

outlined:

1. ― Effective Greek intercourse [trade] and influence in the Near East long ante- date the end of the fourth century B.C. Leaving aside the Assyrian king Sargon II‘s boast of drawing the Iamanian ( ‗Ionian‘ of Cyprus) from the Mediterranean like a fish, good archaeological evidence betrays Greek traders active in the Orient in

the eighth century B.C.‖ 47

2. ― In Palestine itself, eighth-century Greek pottery is attested, e.g., an Argive crater from Samaria of Jereboam II, c. 750 BC, and other material from Megiddo and Tell Abu Hawan . . . . In the fifth century, Greek ( Athenian ) right down to

Elath (Tell el Kheleifeh) on the Gulf of Aqaba leading to the Rea Sea.‖48

3. ― Greek mercenaries were attested in the Orient from the late seventh cen- tury BC onwards . . . . Greek mercenaries also served in the Babylonian forces about the period 605-585 BC, as witnessed by the poet Alcaeus whose brother fought alongside Babylonians in Phoenicia. Fourth-century Greek papyri were

found at Elephantine in Upper Egypt long ago.49

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4. ― . . . it may be noted that Greek artisans were employed in the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar II (i.e., c. 595-570 BC) published by Wiedner include ‗Ionians‘, besides such people as Jehoiachin of Judah, his entourage, and many other as-

sorted foreigners (especially craftsmen).‖ 50

5. [Kitchen then demonstrates that Greek words and phrases were found in Im- perial Aramaic over a century before Alexander‘s Eastern conquests]. ― The Babylonian word [ istatir(anu) ] is now considered itself to be a Greek loan-

word (mainly in documents of the Alexander and Seleucid periods) in that lan- gauge, while in Imperial Aramaic the word ‗stater‘ recurs in Papyrus Brook- lyn 12:5 and 14, there explicitly called ‗Greek money‘ ( ksp Ywn, ‗silver of

Yavan‘).‖ 51

6. [ Another provocative linguistic phenomena mentioned by Kitchen, draw- ing from the research of Yaron is the attestation of ― Greek‖ usage in Arama- ic documents which date earlier than its occurrence in the later Greek texts. But what appears to be purely accidental may be simply that those earlier Greek documents have not yet been recovered ]. ― This point should be born in mind by those who insist upon the smpny‟ of Daniel being a musical instru- ment in Greek ‗only‘ late in the Hellenistic period. . . . [ The fallacy of nega-

tive evidence !]52

7. Thus, ― . . . the idea that Greek words and influence could not affect the Near East or appear in Aramaic before Alexander the Great must be given up- the massive general background apart, both are sufficiently attested by the certain occurrence of stater, clearly labelled ‗ Greek money ‘, the probable occurrence of dorema, ‗gift‘, and just possibly by other words or phraseology

that need confirmation before they could be taken as definite evidence.‖53

*8. ― It is in the light of the foregoing background that the three Greek musical

terms in Daniel should be approached. Of the three terms, qytrs ( kitharos )is already known from Homer ( i.e., eighth century at latest ), and so has no bear- ing on date whatever.‖ [ ― Thus, these two words psntrn and smpny‟ – and only two words from an entire book !-– are necessarily indecisive, when the only ap-

peal is to ignorance.‖ ]54

*9. Kitchen brings the discussion of the Greek words to an end by a simple ob-

servation of how few evidences of Greek are found in Daniel ( only two signifi- cant expressions!) which must be contrasted to the 19-20 Persian words in the Aramaic and a few others in Hebrew. He states his summary of this part with firm conviction:― The obvious inference, when one remembers the Greek rela- tions with the Near East from the eighth century onwards, is that the Aramaic of Daniel could have been written at any time from c. 539 BC onwards until

just after the fall of the Persian Empire.‖ 55

Edwin Yamauchi, ancient historian and professor at Ohio‘s Miami University,

has added his support to Kitchen‘s results: ― In light of the many contacts of Greeks

with the Near East before the fifth century, it should not be surprising to find Greek

words in the Aramaic document of that date. The only element of surprise to this

writer is that there are not more Greek words in such documents . . . .‖56 Another

13

scholar who has enhanced this revised historical picture is Martin Hengel, Biblical

scholar and historian at the University of Tubingen. According to his research, ― From

the time of the Ptolemies Jerusalem was a city in which Greek was spoken to an

increasing degree.‖ And he further states, ― It can be demonstrated from the Zeno

papyri that the Greek language was known in aristocratic and military circles of

Judaism between 260 and 250 BC in Palestine. It was already widespread at the

acession of Antiochus IV in 175 BC and would hardly have been suppressed even by the

victorius freedom fight of the Maccabees.‖57

II. The Matter of the Aramaic Itself in Daniel. It will be recalled that S.R. Driver had argued in 1897 that the Aramaic of

Daniel ― is a Western Aramaic dialect, of the type spoken near Palestine.‖ 58 From this

Driver reasoned that Daniel must have been written in Palestine in the early 2nd

century B.C. But this critical dogmatism has been vigorously challenged and now

totally discredited by recent discoveries of fifth-century and earlier Aramaic

inscriptions and texts. Over thirty years ago, for instance, Gleason L. Archer, Jr.

succintly quipped: ― Recent discoveries of fifth century Aramaic documents, however,

have shown quite conclusively that Daniel was, like Ezra, written in a form of Imperial

Aramaic (Reichsarmaisch), an official or literary dialect which had currency in all parts

of the Near East.‖59 It might also be recalled that H.H. Rowley had argued in 1929

that, even granted that Biblical Aramaic in itself does not indicate a late date, certain

features of Daniel‘s Aramaic ( =DA ) supported a time of composition later than the

fourth century B.C.60 But already in 1953 Emil Kraeling, who published many of the

Elephantine Papyri, strongly maintained a different perspective: ― There is no very

great difference between the language of the papyri and the so-called Biblical

Aramaic. ‖61 Edwin Yamauchi reached a similar conclusion in 1967: ― Discoveries, such

as Adon‘s letter in Aramaic (sixth century B.C.) have confirmed the fact that the

Aramaic of Ezra and Daniel is basically the same as the Aramaic of the sixth-fifth

centuries as we know it from contemporary evidence.‖62

In the decades between 1970 and 1995 (which is as far as this study was able to

tract) at least three dedicated scholarly philological treatises have strenghtened the

case for DA and Biblical Aramaic generally as genuine 6th century Imperial Aramaic.

The first researcher is Israeli scholar E.Y. Kutscher in his tremendously significant

14

work, Hebrew and Aramaic Studies.63 Kutscher had already compared Ezra and Daniel

with the Genesis Apocryphon from the Qumran collection in 1958 and reached the

verdict that Biblical Aramaic ( =BA ) was virtually the same as Official Aramaic( = OfA )

mixed with Middle Aramaic (= MA ).64 Zdravko Stefanovic indeed has stated that

Kutscher has made thus far ― the most extensive study of the problems related to the

dialects of OfA and their bearing on the dating of BA. Not all scholars are ready to

accept dialectal differences (especially of the eastern type) at early stage, yet

Kutscher‘s argumentation seems valid and convincing.‖ 65 But Professor Kutscher has

contended that BA is an eastern variety of the Aramaic language and that by the time

of G.R Driver‘s publication of the fifth-century papyri did establish the clear existence

of the eastern and western branches of the Official (Imperial) Aramaic.66 The most

valuable aspect of Kutscher‘s philological analysis was that he identified seven precise

characteristics of the eastern type of OfA. These characteristics are:

(1) extensive use of the genitive construction plus zy (dy); (2) the use of the

proleptic suffix of the type beteh di; extensive use of the possessive pronoun zyl- (dyl-) instead of possessive suffix; (4) a word order in which the object precedes the infinitive and the finite verb; (5) a word order in which the sub- ject often precedes the verb (Akkadian and Babylonian influence); (6) the use of the formula qetil l- employed as perfect; and (7) the presence of Akkadian

and Persian loan words.67

In circles of critical and liberal scholars, Daniel‘s Aramaic was frequently

compared with the Late Aramaic, especially the Nabatean and Palmerene inscriptions

which roughly corresponded to the historical era of 200 B.C. to 200 A.D. Kutscher was

one scholar who said this was an invalid procedure: ― [Therefore] older linguistic

material found in the Nabatean and Palmyrene cannot serve as definite proof that it

was actually current in contemporary literature.‖68

The second important contemporary researcher on DA (!) is P.W. Coxon, whose

work complemented that of both K.A. Kitchen and E.Y. Kutscher. Although he

approached the problem of DA from many angles, he tablernacled in the area of the

syntax of Biblical Aramaic (like Franz Rosenthal in the class textbook). He tended to

agreed with Kutscher in his estimate of the geographical province of Daniel‘s Aramaic,

particularly. He comments: ― The syntactical aspects of Biblical Aramaic is [sic] the

area where the most telling symptoms of dialectical affinity manifest themselves.‖69

And when Coxon pursued this new evaluation of the syntax of DA, he was parting ways

with the old dialectal thesis of S.R. Driver, H.H. Rowley, and two generations of

15

Aramaists. His ground-breaking article was ― The Syntax of the Aramaic of Daniel: A

Dialectal Study ‖ in HUCA 48 (1977): 106-122. Coxon looked at the latest evidence at

the time and justified his agenda on the grounds that a fresh examination of the

Aramaic of Daniel was ― an urgent desideratum ‖ due to the vastly increased body of

Aramaic texts.70 What was his overall findings ? He responded thusly: ― In the lexical

field Biblical Aramaic contains unmistakable traits of Official Aramaic. In his attempt

to re-affirm the second century (date) of Daniel ROWLEY fails to do them justice.‖71

Ironically, J.A. Fitzmyer, who has also, like Coxon, worked with the new evidence (and

who originally extended the classification of Official Aramaic from 700 to 200 B.C.),

but who has dated the final redaction of Daniel to 165 B.C. is now willing to concede

with W.F. Albright that the Aramaic portions of Daniel may be older than the second

century.72

A third capable researcher, Robert I. Vasholz, has also reviewed the Aramaic

documents from Qumran, especially the Targum to Job, and has judged that it too

offers evidence that quite defintely points to a ― a pre-second century date for the

Aramaic of Daniel.‖73 Vascholz‘s investigations, like those Franz Rosenthal and E.Y.

Kutscher constitute the New Dialectal theory of Biblical Aramaic which distinguishes

the divisions of the older Official Aramaic into two types in the same period, rather

than an earlier and later type which are to be regarded geographically (the Old

Dialectical theory of S.R. Driver, A.A. Bevan, J.A. Montgomery, and H.H. Rowley).74

Vasholz is also one of many hwo have cautioned that in the field of Daniel and Ezra‘

Aramaic that philological evidence is only one part of the picture available which aids

in dating Biblical and other documents.75

Much, much more could be said about DA (Daniel‘s Aramaic), but here it

suffices to mention that Kenneth Kitchen‘s article in 1965 (pub. 1970) spent nearly 20

pages just on a discussion of the phenomena of orthography and phonetics and its

significance for the dating and correct placement of Biblical Aramaic in light of the

total Near Eastern comparative data.76 Our class textbook by Franz Rosenthal

summarizes much of what Kitchen surveys on pp. 11-23 of the sixth, revised edition of

his book, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, so the procedure here will be to list some

key highlights as was done earlier :

*1. Kitchen shows that part of H.H. Rowley‘s justication for the late date

of DA rests on two precarious assumptions: (a) that the consonantal text

16

of the Aramaic of Daniel has undergone no change of orthography since the time of its original composition; and (b) that the normal orthographies of Old, Imperial, and Biblical Aramaic all give throughout a strictly accurate phonetic spelling of the consonant-sounds of these forms of Aramaic — in

short, that sounds and spellings always and closely agree.77

*2. [Kitchen]: ― Now the point of all this is that the Aramaic had in the

first millennium BC maintained separate more of the old Semitic conso- nants than had Phoencian. In Phoenician and Hebrew, d had fallen to-

gether with z, t with s d! and z! with s!, h with h!, g with „ and so on. How-

ever, in in Old Aramaic, d,t, d!,z! were still pronounced as distinct sounds

- but no separate symbols existed for them in the Phoencian alphabet in which Aramaic now came to be written.‖ 78

*3. [Kitchen]: ― By and large Aramaic continued to be written in its phoneti-

cally-inadequate, pseudo-Phoencian orthography. But by the fifth century century BC (as is illustrated by the Aramaic documents from Egypt)and be- ginning earlier, certain phonetic changes occurred in the spoken language,

and occasionally appeared in the written documents.‖ 79

4. Specific recently demonstrable or neglected observations [Kitchen’s

outline]:

(i) ‗z‘/d /d. [ ― Z in Hebrew-Phoenician and d in Assyrian have only one common denominator, and that is d (‗dh‘), as often shown by Ugaritic d (cf. here, ‘ dr)‖ ].80

[Exceptions to this Kitchen argues are either ― false archaisms‖ (as in the Brooklyn Papyri 3:17) or Aramaic phonetically written in an alien script (Cf. the clay tablet from Uruk, S. Babylonia, ca. 300 B.C.) ] ― In other words, by the fifth century BC (and doubtless earlier) z for d was a purely ‗historical‘ spelling, and the real pronunciation was d as in Biblical and later Aramaic; the evidence of this document (combined with the zyn-zbb

/dyn-dbb of P. Brookyln 3:17) is final.‖ 81

(ii) ‘s’/t/t . [ ― Here, the shift from t written s to t both spoken and writ- ten was under way long before the fifth century BC, when it occurs al- most throughout in the papyri. Thus, West Semitic tbr , ‗ to break ‘, in Ugaritic (UM, III, no, 2013) is written s br in Old Aramaic (e.g. Sfire), but

tbr in the fifth-century papyri ( AP, four references) as in Daniel and la-

ter Aramaic.‖ ]. 82

(iii) ‘q’/d!-g/‘. [ ― In this case, the phonetic change is a little more com-

plicated. The Old-Semitic sound d! seems to have passed over to g ghain),

and in this Old Aramaic – in these cases – written as q in Phoenician-deriv-

ed alphabet. But eventually, as already in Hebrew and Phoenician, g was assimilated to ‘ (‘ayin ), reducing q to a mere historical orthography, and

so ‘ at length was written instead of q.‖ ] 83

(iv) ‘s /s /s-s. [ ― That s (sin) and s (samekh) were – or became – closely similar in pronunciation seems clear from the fact that in Hebrew words

from certain roots are written on occasion with either sibilant. . . . In fact , it is hardly attested at all either in Biblical Aramaic or outside it in Imperial Aramaic. In Daniel, there is only one ‗native Semitic‘ example:

17

sbr (for sbr), ‗ to think‘. The same is true for Ezra.‖ ]

84

*(v) ― Finally, the variation between h and ‘ at the end of words . . . .

Of Rowley‘s conveniently tabulated 15 points, nos 2,3,4,7,8,10, show such affinity in usage between the Aramaic of Daniel and Old and Im- perial Aramaic, that they prove nothing . . . . While the Aramaic of shows variation in the use of h and ’, the Aramaic papyri generally dis- criminate in writing between verbs in final ’ and in final h (w/y); but this is not always so: the papyri do show some variations, and these can occasionally appear even in Old Aramaic inscriptions.‖ 85

*(5). [Kitchen next addresses orthographic changes in names of rulers]:

― There is, therefore, an obvious cleavage in spelling between docu-

ments under Darius I ( Dr(y)ws and those under Darius II and III ( Dry

(w)hws ) and Daniel and Ezra preserve the early spelling in their

Aramaic . . . . But if their matter was first composed in third century BC or later, then their failure to use the form with h – in constant use for a century by then (c. 420-330 BC) – is quite incomprehensible. At

a minimum, something must thus go back to before 420 BC.‖86

Professor Kitchen then underscores the significant invalidity of the first

assumption. It is that ― down to the fifth century BC, the normal orthography of of Old

and Imperial Aramaic did not offer a strictly phonetic spelling for all consonants: d had

to be written z; t and s; d ! > g as q; z! as s !, etc.‖87 A little further on he comments:

―And here we come back to the first assumption, that of the constancy in the

orthographic transmission of the Aramaic of Daniel. In detail, for h, ’, y the evidence

of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the text of Daniel shows that orthographic variation did in

fact occur in MS transmission and tradition.‖88 Other evidences of orthographic

―modernization‖ is found in the current MT (Aramaic) text of Daniel. Older scholars

like G. Schaeder had pointed to gdbry’, ― the treasurers,‖ in Daniel 3:2,3 as compared

with gzbry‟ in Ezra 7:21 (in the Hebrew of Ezra 1:8). Gzbr is a loan-word from Old

Persian (Schaeder posited from Median), ganzabra. While Kitchen accepts that a

―hyper-correction‖ was made in scribal transmission, he reads the evidence

differently: ― But an apparent parallel for such over-reduction of ‘z’ to d in a Persian

word in the fifth century BC, from the Arsames correspondence may here be

dismissed.‖89 He reasons therefore, in principle, that there is no necessary justifica-

tion to deny possible orthographic changes during the textual transmission of Daniel

(and one positive piece of evidence points in that direction). Then he makes two

significant assertions : (1) that one make clear distinctions between inscriptions or ad

hoc documents written once, with no long history of transmission (such as the

18

Elephantine papyri – letters, lists, legal documents, etc. and essentially literary works

like Daniel, Ezra, or Ahiqar which were transmitted by copyists for centuries. (2) But

― The second point is that not merely are such changes (i) possible and (ii) probable,

but (iii) they actually and often took place in the transmission of Ancient Near Eastern

literature. We have no warrant to exempt Biblical literature from sharing in the same

fundamental processes that affected all other literature in the Biblical world. ‖90 The

mechanisms of these changes may be listed as historical orthography, false archaism,

orthographic changes in long manuscript-transmission, piecemeal changes (after

phonectic ones), conscious and unconcious revisions.

Kitchen draws to a close his discussion of possible orthographic changes in DA

(which makes sense on a sixth/fifth century dating, but not in a 2nd century Maccabean

one), he thinks ― It is very probable that Imperial Aramaic retained its historical

orthography in the main well beyond c. 399 BC, the latest date among the Elephantine

papyri.‖ Yet he trenchantly notes: ― But when Alexander and successors took over the

Orient by 330 BC and following, the role of Aramaic as the language of government

must have declined visibly; the official tongue of the new rulers was Greek.‖91 Then he

powerfully summarizes: ― What, then, is the significance of all of this ? Simply that we

have no inherent right to assume that the present orthography of the Aramaic of

Daniel requires a second-century date for the original composition of the Aramaic

text. Certainly, if the book was composed at that time, then only restricted variations

would have been possible (e.g. in vowel-letters; s and s ). ‖92

Under ― C. Grammar and Syntax‖ Kitchen drives the stake in the Late Aramaic

theory of the composition of Daniel. He the kinds of evidence he used are simply listed

without a great deal of explanation:

I. Morphology –Grossly Inadequate statistics and “ the fallacy of negative evidence.

(1a) Purely orthographic variation in use of vowel-letters.

(1b) ― Defective ‖ spelling in papyri, vs. ―full‖ (plene) spelling in Daniel (and Ezra).

(2) Forms common to the papyri ( and sometimes Old Aramaic), Daniel (and Ezra)

and the ―late sources‖ such as Nabataean, Palymarene, and Targums, etc. [ See

the other presentations on Old Aramaic treaty texts from Sfire in North Syria (8th

century B.C.), etc. with fourteen examples of ’ln – archaic texts.93

19

* Kitchen makes one particularly important point about the alternation of h

and ’ for reflexive and causative verb-forms. Here BA and DA both agree with

Old and Imperial Aramaic more than with the later texts.

(3) Historical orthography, in particular z for d, from d .

(4) ― Anomalous forms ‖, so far unique to Daniel [ no clear evidential value].

(5) Material found only in Biblical Aramaic and older sources.

(6) Apparently Late Criteria :

a. Illusory lexical and phonetic examples [ e.g., th!wt ] (P. Brookyln 6:10).

b. Pronominal Forms that add n, or substitute it for the m of the papyri. c. Grammatical and morphological change through textual transmission. d. Consistent modernization in spelling (common in ostracon, papyri, and all kinds of texts from Egpyt and Mesopotamia since 2000 B.C. !!!). e. Other miscellaneous forms: Pe’al Imperfective, yd’ [ shows an n before

d (R., X:15)94

II. Syntax – Even Rowley Acknowledged: “ Few Differences ” of Any Importance.

A. [Kitchen]: ― Of his [Rowley‘s] various points ( section XI of his AOT, pp. 98- 108 ), XI:1(i), (iii)a, 2,3(b), 6 and 7, all fall under the same judgment as # I, section (2) above, attested in early sources (Old Aramaic and papyri) as well

as late ( Targums, etc.) this robbing them all evidential value.‖ 95

B. [Kitchen]: ― In fine, under Grammar and Syntax, there is nothing decisive in favor of an early or late date for the Aramaic of Daniel . The ‗late‘ phenomena (restricted, in fact, to a mere n in certain pronominal forms) are as likely to re- present textual history as date of composition; most of the supposed criteria

are in fact invalid.‖ 96

IV. Conclusion: Daniel’s Historical and Prophetic Integrity. The general results of our survey has shown that there is really no decisive

linguistic or philological evidence against placing the writing of Daniel in the historical

and traditional niche where Biblical and canonical history places it. While Daniel, for

certain reasons unclear to us, is placed among the Writings of the Old Testament

rather than the Prophets, hardly reflects on its inspiration or its actual highly

prophetic character. Daniel 9:2 refers to ― the books‖, which includes the prophecy of

Jeremiah and itself bears witness to the knowledge of authoritative prophecy. But

Daniel itself and the prophet himself were likewise regarded as authoritative by the

Qumran community as early as 150 B.C. (or earlier) and by Jesus and the Apostles.97

Professor Joyce Baldwin, following F.F. Bruce‘s detailed research, has underscored the

20

obvious : ― If Daniel had been accepted into the canon already in Maccabean times it

ceases to be remarkable that the Qumran community found it authoritative or that it

was so evidently regarded as Scripture in the time of Jesus.‖98 Furthermore, G.J.

Wenham (Queen‘s University of Belfast) has seconded Solomon Z. Leiman‘s study that

some genuine evidence exists to show that the Old Testament canon was virtually

closed in Maccabean times. This would mean it would be too soon if Daniel was

written in 165-3 B.C. to include it as Scripture and for it to receive authoritative

status.99 If prophets were hardly accepted in their own home town and by their own

contemporaries (for the most part), it is hard to imagine how an exotic and

apocalyptic-prophetic book like Daniel would have gained the acceptance it did in a

few months or years on the critical ―Maccabean thesis.‖ Kitchen, Yamauchi, Kutscher,

et al. have shown beyond much reasonable doubt the Greek words in Daniel are

irrelevant for dating, the Persian words in Daniel are mostly old Persian loan-words

(some with Akkadian backgrounds), and mostly it has been demonstrated that the

Aramaic fits with the Imperial Aramaic of the early Persian Age of Cyrus and Darius.

Kitchen himself points out that the date of the book of Daniel cannot be finally

decided on linguisitic grounds alone (― The Aramaic of Daniel ‖, p. 79). But if we have

no reason to doubt that Daniel‘s Aramaic and Hebrew go back to the sixth century,

then his incredible forecasts of world-history in Greek Roman times of the 3rd to 1st

century ( Cf. chaps. 9-11) and his profound depiction of the ―days of the end‖ indicate

the supernatural integrity of his visions.

Endnotes

1 The author‘s knowledge of Hebrew is a little better and might possibly qualify, if one is generous, at a

Junior High (near Bar Mitzwah) level. 2 See the useful notes in the NET Bible, The New English Translation. Second Beta Edition; ( WWW. NET

BIBLE.COM. Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C., 2003), p.1533. One excellent secondary source is the new commentary by Stephen R. Miller, Daniel. In L. Russ Bush, Duane A. Garrett, and Larry L. Walker, eds., The New American Commentary. Vol.18. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers,1994, especially pp. 22-32.An older work by Joyce G. Baldwin, Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary. In D.J. Wiseman, ed., Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1978 has proven to be so helpful in preparing this study. If Daniel‘s testimony is taken at ordinary face value he lived in Babylon from age fifteen until very old age, observing the entire Neo-Babylonian period and much of the early part of the Persian Era. 3 Cf. J.J. Slotki, Daniel-Ezra-Nehemiah (London: Soncino, 1978), xi, as cited in Stephen R. Miller, Daniel,

NAC, p. 22.

21

4 These are as follows: Ezekiel 14:14,20; 28:3; Matthew 24:15; and Mark 13:14.

5 The following are cited in Miller, Op Cit., pp. 22: J.A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical

Commentary on the Book of Daniel, ICC ( Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979 [Reprint of 1927 edition]), p. 128; E.J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1949), p. 43; and liberal scholar R.H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (London: A & C Black, 1952), p. 754. It is not clear that all of these names are equivalent in meaning or that any of these other ―Daniels‖ have anything whatsoever to do with the Biblical author Daniel in the 6th century B.C., however. 6

Miller cites the friendlier work of B.S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture

(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), p. 611 and he remarks additionally that ― Often scholars who accept the Maccabean thesis identify the sceond-century writer as a member of the religious sect known as the Hasidim‖ , in Daniel, NAC, p. 23. He mentions as follows: Pfeiffer, Introduction, p. 73; John E. Goldingay, Daniel, WBC ( Dallas: Word Publishing, 1989 ), pp. 326-29; A. Lacococque, The Book of Daniel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979), pp. 10-11; W.S. Towner, Daniel, INT (Atlanta: John Knox, 1984), pp. 6-8 also. 7

His article is entitled, ― The Book of Daniel and the Origin of the Qumran Community,‖ in Biblical

Archaeologist 48 [1985] :89-105. 8 Two liberal scholars who fairly explain this early attack on predictive prophecy are Otto Eissfeldt, The

Old Testament: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), pp. 517ff. and J.A. Soggin, Introduction to the Old Testament, OTL ( Philadelphia: The Westmister Press, 1980), p. 407. These are cited by Miller, Daniel, Op. Cit., pp. 23-24. 9 Cf. Gleason L. Archer, Jr., trans. and ed., Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel ( Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Baker Book House, 1958), pp. 317-20. On the assertion of Prophyry that Daniel‘s prophecies were ―after the fact‖, see the superb article by Bruce K. Waltke, ― The Date of the Book of Daniel,‖ in Bibliotheca Sacra 133 (1976): 319 and the older discussion by Edward J. Young in ― Porphyry and His Criticism of Daniel, in The Prophecy of Daniel, pp. 317-20. 10 Daniel, NAC, p. 24. See the further details from the standard conservative and liberal introductions in

his footnote 12. Particularly significant is the citation there from H.H. Rowley, ― The Unity of the Book of Daniel,‖ in The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays on the Old Testament (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), pp. 249-80. 11 Miller, on pp. 24-26 cites the work of D.E. Fox, Bruce M. Metzger, and the commentary by L.F.

Hartman and A.A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel in the Anchor Bible series (New York: Doubleday, 1978), p. 53. These authors and Miller show that Daniel‘s alleged ―historical errors‖ are largely subjective evaluations based on a prejudicial reading of the actual text with radical presuppostions about history. 12

Miller, Daniel, Ibid. R.H. Pfieffer enumerates several historical errors in the book of Daniel, even

though he calls Daniel ― a very learned man‖ ( Introduction, p. 76). His admissions of Daniel‘s accuracy in other places is found in his Introduction, pp. 758-759. 13 This quotation is from Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans

Publishing Company, 1969), pp. 1120-21. Miller also cites A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948(, pp. 473-474. 14 One significant modern defender of the historical reliability is that of archaeologist A.R. Millard in his

article, ― Daniel 1-6 and History,‖ in Evangelical Quarterly 49 (1977):73. 15

― The Book of Daniel and the ‗ Maccabean Thesis,‘ ‖ in Andrews University Seminary Studies 21

(1983):134-6. 16 “ The Book of Daniel and the ‗ Maccabean Thesis,‘ ‖ Ibid. 17

This is not to deny that there were certain individuals like the Chaldean magicians who conspired

against Daniel or Haman later in the time of Esther, who were fervently anti-Semitic. 18 Daniel, NAC, p. 27. 19 Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary, in D.J. Wiseman, ed., Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries

(Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1978), p. 28. The reference to Herodotus comes from his History, Loeb Classical Library. E.T. by A.O. Godley ( 4 Vols.; Cambridge, Mass.and London: Loeb Classical Library, 1921-5) i.181,183 . 20 Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary, p. 29. 21 A.R. Millard, ― Daniel 1-6 and History,‖ in the Evangelical Quarterly, XLIX, 2, 1977, pp. 69-71, cited in

Baldwin, Op. Cit.

22

22 The conclusion of Joyce Baldwin following A.R. Millard‘s research. Millard himself refers to the

specialized study of W. von Soden, Grundriss der Akkadischen Grammatick, Analecta Orientalia, 33, 47 (Rome: The Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), paragraph 30g. 23 Joseph Naveh states that ― About 1100 B.C. the Aramaeans adopted the alphabetic script which was

employed at that time by the Canaanites and Phoenicians. They wrote in the same script until mid-8th century B.C.‖ in ― Aramaic Script. ‖ In David Noel Freedman, et al. eds., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York and London: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1992), Vol. I: A – C, pp. 343-345. Our own professor, Dr. Stephen J. Andrews has mentioned a few early Aramaic or Aramaean texts as early as the 3rd millennium B.C: a tablet celebrating the victory of Naram-Sin over A-RA-AM (discovered in the 1920s) and dated ca.

2100-2000 B.C; the Ur-III Text mentioning the city of A-ra-am-ki (from Syria near ancient Ebla or Aleppo);

and the Mari Tablets (2nd millennium) which have Aramaic names and speak of the Aramaeans [ PN + A + ra – mu and PN = Ah –la-mu]. See Class Notes, Lecture 1, 02/27/2005. 24 From the Stone Age to Christianity. 2nd edition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books,

1957), ch. 1, ― New Horizons in History,‖ p. 44. Later in the same book he says that ― Without going into further details, we can safely say that the Aramaic language sprang froma a West-Semitic dialect spoken in northwestern Mesopotamia in the early second century B.C., a dialect which seems to have left clear traces in the Mari documents. The Hebrew Patriarchs presumably spoke this dialect before their settlement in Palestine, but there, at an uncertain period, they adopted the local Canannite dialect which was not identical with the standard speech of the Canaanites, as may be linguistically demonstrated. ‖ (p. 239). 25 Professor Rowley developed this view in the 1930s-1940s and it is conveniently stated in an article in

wrote in Zeitschrift fur die altestamentliche Wissenschaft, L (1932), pp. 256ff. cited by R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament ( Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 1133. 26 Cf. A. Lenglet, ― La Structure Litteraire de Daniel 2-7, ‖ in Biblica, 53 (1972):169-190 cited in Joyce

Baldwin, Daniel, TOTC, p. 30. 27

An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1897), p.

viii. 28 See also his later interpretative magnum opus, Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the

Book of Daniel. A Historical Study of Contemporary Theories. Cardiff, Wales: The University of Wales Press, 1935. One of his later important articles (in which he has some minor reconsiderations) is ― The Unity of the Book of Daniel.‖ In The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays, pp. 249-280. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. 29 One outstanding and erudite defender of both Daniel‘s Persian Aramaic and his Divinely-established

status as a prophet was the Princetonian scholar, Robert Dick Wilson, who taught Old Testament and Semitics at Princeton Theological Seminary for about twenty-five years. His works include: ― The Aramaic of Daniel.‖ In Biblical and Theological Studies, pp. 261-306. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1912, and Studies in the Book of Daniel: A Discussion of the Historical Questions. New York: Putnam‘s, 1917. 30 This essay is contained in D.J. Wiseman, T.C.Mitchell & R. Joyce, W.J. Martin, and K.A. Kitchen. Notes

on Some Problems in The Book of Daniel (London: The Tyndale Press, 1965), pp. 31-79. 31 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 75. 32 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 76. Kitchen draws on the specialized studies of several scholars here:

E.Y. Kutscher, Scripta Hiersolymitana, IV ( 1958), pp. 33-34; F. Altheim and R. Stiehl, Die Aramaische Sprache unterden Achaimeniden I (1963), pp. 214-222; J. van der Ploeg, Le Targum de Job de la Grotte 11 de Qumran (1962)\, p. 7. 33 “ The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. Here Kitchen looks at the work of Dupont-Sommer in the journal

Syria, XXIV,

1944-1945, pp. 57-58 and Walter Baumgartner in Zeitschrift fur die altestamentliche Wissenschaft, XLV, 127, pp. 129-130. 34 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. Kitchen adds: ― . . . and [it does] not automatically [mean] that a

Daniel himself was under Babylonian influence in his writing.‖ Kitchen supports his main grammatical assertion with reference to the conclusions of W. von Soden, Grundiss der Akkadischen Grammatik [1st Edition] Analecta Orientalia 33/47 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1952), # 130, pp. 183-185.

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35 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 76-77. This concurs with what Franz Rosenthal states in his monograph,

A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic. Sixth, Revised Edition (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995),p. 10. There he remarks: ― The Aramaic of the Bible as written has preserved the Official Aramaic character. This is what makes it nearly uniform in linguistic appearance. It also makes it largely identical with the language used in other Official Aramaic texts. Most numerous among these are the Aramaic documents of the Achaemenid period discovered in Egypt which are invaluable for the understanding of the Biblical Aramaic . . .‖ 36 The Aramaic of the Old Testament (London: Oxford University Press, 1929), p. 138 and Cf. A.E.

Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. ( 1st Edition; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1923). [2nd Edition was issued in 1957]. 37 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 77, and see previously pp. 35-44. 38 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 37-39. Kitchen mentions the Ahiqar text, the Behistun-text

[inscription], and some other documents. G.R. Driver‘s book is Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century BC. Abridged and Revised edition (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957 ). On the dcouments from Tuna el-Gebel, see Maurice Kamil, Revue de l’ Histoire Juive en Egypte, I, 1947, pp. 1-3. 39 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 39-40. 40 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. 41 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 42. 42 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 43. Kitchen‘s conclusion: ― Now if Daniel (in particular, the Aramaic

chapters 2-7) were wholly a product of c. 165 BC, then just a century or so in a continuous tradition is surely embarrassingly inadequate as a sufficient interval for that loss (or change) of meaning to occur, by Near Eastern standards.‖ (Ibid.). 43 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 43-44. 44 Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC, p. 33. Professor Baldwin‘s has summarized many

matters about the backgrounds and critical questions about Daniel in her commentary introduction. This writer has also learned much from Kenneth Kitchen‘s monographs, Gleason Archer‘s Old Testament Survey, and the articles of Edwin Yamauchi in the Bibliotheca Sacra and his contributions in several books. 45 R. Jeffery, ― Book of Daniel,‖ p. 349 , cited by Stephen R. Miller in Daniel , NAC , p. 29. 46

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 44. 47

“ The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. He also remarks, ― Eoboean Greeks shared the trade with Cypriots.

Greek pottery of the period has been found at various Syrian sites (including Hamath and the Amq plain), and penetrated even to Ninevah in Assyria itself. ‖ 48 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 45. ― In other words, Greek traders were active in the Levant from the

days of Amos onwards, and their wares penetrated to Ninevah and Babylon.‖ Professor‘s Kitchen‘s citations of journals and primary archaeological studies here is quite extensive. 49

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 45-46. 50

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 46. And he adds, ― In other words, the Babylonians lumped together

under ‗Ionians‘ the mixed inhabitants – Greek, Cilician, Lycian – of Southern Asia Minor. Greek artisans in the Persian Empire are well known.‖ 51 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. He explains, ― While some earlier attempts to identify certain words

as Greek in the Aramaic papyri have failed, this possibility has now come under renewed examination.

Yaron with some plausibility would identify drmy in the P. Brooklyn 9:3 as the Greek dorema. The case of pryt or pdypt is doubtful ( P. Brooklyn 12:11). Yaron read pdypt and took this as Greek paideutos, ‗ brought up‘, i.e., ‗ ward‘ or ‗ nursling ‘, quoting the Talmudic pdypty as parallel. Possibly with less

likelihood, Rabinowitz read prypt and interpreted this as Greek threpte. They cannot both be right, and may both be wrong.‖ (pp. 46-47). 52

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. 53 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 48. Kitchen, moreover, underscores the fact that is not unusual in

Oriental epigraphy: ― There are plenty of parallels in the Near East for the accidental preservation of words in one language as loan-words in another tongue at an earlier date than extant known occurences in the original tongue. ‖ (Ibid.) 54

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 49.

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55

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. Again, he adds, ― By the same token, a writer of the second century

BC should have used Greek terms in such a passage where Hebrew or Aramaic terms did not suffice for technicalities –-strategos, epistolographos, archon and the rest; for in 165 BC, Palestine had already had 150 years of Ptolemaic and Seleucid rule. Therefore, one would – on the Greek and Persian evidence above prefere to put the Aramaic of Daniel in the late sixth, the fifth, or the fourth centuries BC, not the third or second.‖ 56

Greece and Babylon: Early Contacts Between the Aegean and the Near East. Baker Studies in Biblical

Archaeology. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1967), p. 94. See inter aelia, his chapter VII, ― Con- clusions ‖ in the work above, pp. 89-94. Yamauchi also has another updated article which displays his profound sophistication in archaeological and lingusitic work and it bears on the topic at hand, ― The Archaeological Background of Daniel,‖ In Bibliotheca Sacra 137 (1980): 3-16. 57

These citations are taken from his Judaism and Hellenism Judaism and Hellenism : Studies in Their

Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period. E.T. by John Bowden ( 2 Vols.; Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1975), vol. I, pp. 103-4. 58

An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 502-504. A.A. Bevan, the English literary

scholar of the early twentieth century actually said that “ That it [Daniel‘s Aramaic] is, on the contrary, a West-Aramaic dialect, has now been conclusively proved ‖ in A Short Commentary on the Book of Daniel ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892), p. viii. [ This means that, without evidence to the contrary, that it was of late origin – 3rd to 2nd century B.C. – JR.] 59

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. 2nd Revised edition ( Chicago: Moody Press, 1974 ). p. 397.

[1st Edition (1964), p. 376]. 60

The Aramaic of the Old Testament ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929), p. 16; pp. 153-156. 61

The Brooklyn Museum Papyri (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1953), p. 4. Dr. E.g. Kraeling

was Professor at Union Theological Seminary and Semitics Professor at Columbia University in New York. 62

Cf. Greece and Babylon, p. 91. Dr. Yamauchi has a more nuanced discussion of the Adon letter in his

book, The Stones and the Scriptures (2nd Edition; Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1981), p. 81. 63 Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977), pp. 347-412. 64

His earlier article, ― The Language of the Genesis Apocryphon: A Preliminary Study ‖ , in Aspects of

the Dead Sea Scrolls ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1958), p. 6. 65

The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament.

Supplement Series 129. Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT and Sheffield Academic Press, 1992. One important scholar who maintained that the Genesis Apocryphon is Late Aramaic ( = LA) is J.A. Fitzmyer who has published The Genesis Apocyrphon of Qumran Cave I ( Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1966). In that work he energetically insists on what he calls a new ― classification of the Aramaic dialects ‖ and he has more recently insisted that the Official Aramaic‘s lower limit is about 200 BC. This has not been accepted by the majority of Aramaic scholars. Cf. his work, The Wandering Aramaean: Collected Aramaic Essays (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), p. 77 [ especially note 32]. Because this new dating is related to the issue of the dating of Daniel, P.T. Daniels, who reviewed his book, has accused him of being arbitrary in his viewpoint. Cf. Daniels‘ review in JNES 39 [1980], p. 218, cited by Zdravko Stefanovic above, p.17. 66

Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, pp. 367-68, cited in Zdravko Stefanovic, The Aramaic of Daniel in the

Light of Old Aramaic, p. 21. The G.R. Driver to whom Kutscher refers is either the son or grandson of the

S.R. Driver of liberal critical fame. His edition of collected manuscripts is Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954) and (Abridged and Revised Edition; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957). 67

Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, pp. 362-369, cited Zdravko Stefanovic, The Aramaic of Daniel in the

Light of Old Aramaic, p. 21. 68

― The Language of the Genesis Apocryphon, ‖ in Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, pp. 15-16. Stefanovic

includes in his footnote # 5 on this page: ― Note Fitzmyer‘s remark on this article: ‗ His [Kutscher‘s] data and conclusions have been checked and have proven valid ‘ ( Genesis Apocryphon, p. 24 ), cited in Stefanovic, p. 25. 69

Cf. ― The Problem of Consonantal Mutations in Biblical Aramaic ‖, Zeitschrift der deutschen morganla

ndischen Gesellschaft 129 (1979), pp. 8-9, cited by Stefanovic, The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, p. 22. 70

― Syntax of the Aramaic of Daniel ‖, HUCA 48 (1977), p. 108, cited in Stefanovic, The Aramaic of

Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, p. 25. J.C. Greenfield is another scholar who has noticed the

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movement in Aramaic studies between 1953-1980. He remarks: ― There has been a quickening of Aramaic studies in recent years because of the discoveries in various areas ‖ in ― Aramaic Studies and the Bible ‖, in Congress Volume, Vienna 1980 (Vetus Testamentum Supplement 32: Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1980), p. 110. See also Greenfield‘s own contribution: Greenfield, J.C. and A. Shaffer. ― Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue from Tell Fekherye.‖ Iraq 45 (1983): 109-116. 71

― The Distribution of Synonyms in biblical Aramaic in the Light of Official Aramaic and the Aramaic of

Qumran,‖ in Revue de Qumran 9 (1978): 512, cited by Edwin Yamauchi in ― The Archaeological Background of Daniel, ‖ In Bibliotheca Sacra 137 (1980), p. 10. 72

Cf. The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave I, 2nd edition ( Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971), pp.

20-21, note # 56 and his later article, ― The Contribuation of Qumran Aramaic to the Study of the New Testament,‖ in New Testament Studies 20 (1974): 382, note # 4. This like the citation above comes from Edwin Yamauchi, ― The Archaeological Background of Daniel,‖ Ibid. 73

― Qumran and the Dating of Daniel, ‖ JETS 21 (1978): 315-21, cited in Stefanovic, The Aramaic of

Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, p. 17. See also R.I. Vasholz, ― A Philological Comparison of the Qumran Job Targum and its Implications for the Dating of Daniel ‖ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Stellenbosch, 1976), pp. 85-101. This new data was quickly recognized in Kurt Koch, Das Buch Daniel (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980), pp. 34-54. 74

― Qumran and the Dating of Daniel, ‖ JETS 21 (1978), p. 315, note # 1, cited in cited in Stefanovic, The

Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, Ibid. Cf. too Stefanovic‘s own contribution to the question of Aramaic dialects and Daniel‘s Aramaic in particular, Zdravko Stefanovic, ― Correlations between the Old Aramaic Inscriptions and the Aramaic Section of Daniel ‖ (Ph.D. dissertation, Andrews University, 1987). Some contemporary linguistic scholars still maintain the earlier (now, outdated) division of

Aramaic along geographical lines, Cf. Kurt Beyer, Die aramaischen Texte vom Totem Meer ( Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984 ). 75

― A Philological Comparison of the Qumran Job Targum and its Implications for the Dating of Daniel ,‖

pp. 9-10, cited in Stefanovic, The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, p. 27. 76

― The Aramaic of Daniel,‖ Op. Cit., pp. 50-67. The sixth edition of Rosenthal‘s book was issued in

1995 (and reissued in 2002) and thus represents also the latest word on the subject as far as this writer knows. But see also, inter aelia, the comments of Kenneth A. Kitchen in his monumental apologetic tome, On The Reliability of the Old Testament (Cambridge, U.K. and Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), Ch. 3., pp. 76-79 and his endnotes 39 and 40 on pp. 519-520. See further the brilliant historical analyis of D.J. Wiseman, Professor of Assyriology at the University of London in his Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 81-115. 77

― The Aramaic of Daniel,‖ pp. 50-51. Kitchen adds forcefully, ― In reality, neither assumption is

justified – the first is most probably wrong, and the second one is demonstratly wrong.‖ 78 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 52. 79 “

The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 53. 80 “

The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid. 81 “

The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 54. 82 “

The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 55. 83 “

The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 56.

84 “ The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 57.

85 “ The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 59.

86 “ The Aramaic of Daniel. ‖ p. 60.

87 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ Ibid.

88 ― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 61. Cf. also M. Balliet, J.T. Milik, R. de Vaux, Discoveries in the Judean

Desert, III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 115. Later in the paragraph he writes: ― The last phrase [ N.B., that the 2nd century Daniel was a ― spelling reformer‘] betrays Rowley‘s own confusion of orthography with phonetics, of conventional written spelling with pronounced sounds. For Wilson [Robert Dick Wilson] and tisdall maintained the phonetic constancy of Daniel, and invoked orthographic (not phonetic) change (Rowley‘s ‗unreliability‘) in its text ‖ (Ibid). 89

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 62. He further elaborates: ― We have here, then, exactly the same

phenomena as with Mlz/Milid (also an Anatolian name!) from the Zakir stela of the eighth century BC : a d treated as if it were, or had been, d (‗dh‘) and written z by one scribe, but in this case treated simply

26

for what it was (phonetic d) by another (Letter 11). Hence, this not the same as Schaeder‘s phenomenon (reduction of true z to d) that would for its part more likely occur at a date after the Persian Empire and common use of ga(n)zibara had passed away. ‖ (pp. 62-63). 90

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 63. 91

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 66-67. 92

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 67. He also states: ― But in reality there is no factual reason for

preferring this view to the possibility that this Aramaic text was composed in the third, fourth, fifth, or late sixth century BC and underwent orthographic changes that are not the invention of theological con-servatives but are the common fate all such transmitted literature in times of linguistic change ‖ (Ibid.) 93

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 68-69. One specific example that Kitchen provides of ―negative

evidence‖ concerns the accusative partical yt . He writes: ― In 1929, the form yt –outside Daniel—was known only from the late Nabatean and Palmyrene texts; Old Aramaic had different form, and the Imperial Aramaic of the papyri apparently none. But in Papyrus Brooklyn 3:22a. the particle yt is now attested from the fifth century BC, and is unlikely to have been invented for that particular document. As for VII:3 ( ‘ dyn, ‗then‘) its form in Daniel agrees with that of the papyri – but in the Targums this word shows the quite different orthography hydyn ‖ (Ibid.). 94

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ pp. 70-74. 95

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 74. ― As for XI:4, the preposition l before a king‘s name in dates is a

mark of early date. In all the Cowley papyri, it occurs once: in the oldest document, dated to year 27 of Darius I, c. 495 B.C . . . . As late as 451 BC (14th year of Artaxeres I) the earliest papyrus in the Brookyln series uses l . ‖ ( Ibid.) 96

― The Aramaic of Daniel, ‖ p. 75.

97 Cf. Joyce Baldwin, Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC, p. 71. He summarizes: ― . . .

though Daniel was spoken of as ‗ the prophet ‘ both at Qumran and in the Gospels, his book was in a different category and for this reason did not belong among the ‗ Prophets. ‘ The fact that the Hebrew canon placed Daniel among the ‗ Writings ‘ did not necessarily indicate a late date ‖ (Ibid.) Cf. the New Testament references in Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14 [an allusion without explicit of Daniel but with the assumption the reader knows Scripture is being quoted]. An as noted earlier, Daniel‘s role as a prophet is refereced 3X in Ezekiel’s prophecy ( Ezekiel 14:14,20; 28:3). 98

When after long-drawn out arguments about writing materials at the Qumran were over (e.g., whether

or not the texts in which Daniel was quoted were on papyri or vellum) and inconclusive, and when the texts were published in which the words from Daniel were quoted as ‗ written in the book of Daniel the prophet ‘, Professor Bruce was unequivocal: ― This expression (cf. Mt. 24:15) should put an end to doubts about the canonical status of Daniel in the Qumran community.‖ ( F.F. Bruce, ― The Book of Daniel and the Qumran Community, ‖ in Neotestamentica et Semitica , Studies in Honour of Principal Matthew Black (Edinburgh, 1969), cited by Baldwin, Daniel, TOTC, p. 72. 99

Cf. S.Z. Leiman, The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures (HamdenL Archon Books, 1976), referred

to by G.J. Wenham in an article in Themelios, 2.2, 1977, p. 51. Again, cited in Baldwin, TOTC, Ibid.